Can we risk early intervention becoming a cliché ?

Global Entrepreneurship Week kicks off on Monday. Who cares you say? Well, we do – particularly since every year we hold our Annual Margaret Horn Lecture on Social Enterprise Day, 18 November. This free event, created four years ago to provoke debate around Early Years and Social Enterprise, was named to honour a woman who helped first establish and then gave 40 years of her life to our organisation.

During her lifetime, Margaret Horn achieved many things – and certainly did her bit for Big Society in a quiet, dignified and very community spirited way. If anything, this makes me thing that Big Society is very much like fashion; it comes around every ten years in a slightly re-shaped form, and those who were there the first time around may well recognise its form, only may be less certain how to wear its refashioned clothes.

At our event this year, we look forward to hearing Graham Allen MP expound his views on early intervention. I am glad that early intervention has not gone out of fashion, but equally hope it does not become just another cliché. At LEYF, early intervention has real meaning; as we watch children and young apprentices thrive in a place which supports and challenges them, introduces them to the new and extends their opportunities. Oh, I hear the cynics among you yawn, aren’t you marvellous! Touché.

Still, do come and hear him speak, then drown your cynicism in a glass of wine and a chat with us afterwards. If Big Society is to start anywhere, it may as well be at a bar with light refreshments.